Skip to content

Search

Latest Stories

Flood of evacuees follows Hurricane Laura in Texas, Louisiana

Some hotels in Houston already filled to max amid concerns of COVID-19

AS THE FORMER Hurricane Laura moves inland to dwindle across the plains, residents of the Louisiana and Texas Gulf Coast are left to pickup the damage. For some hotel owners in Houston the storm passed with little or no damage, but now they are faced with the next challenge, housing evacuees.

The task is complicated by the still ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.


When Laura made landfall Wednesday evening as a Category 4 storm it hit around Cameron, Louisiana, well east of Houston. It was the strongest storm to hit Louisiana since 1856, according to Accuweather.com.

"We have sustained a tremendous amount of damage," Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said at a press conference while noting that it was not as catastrophic as expected, according to CNN.com

But, in Houston, Sawan Patel, managing partner at Unity Hotels Group and director of AAHOA’s Southeast Texas Region, was breathing a sigh of relief. Before the storm he had spent days preparing his hotels for Laura.

“We are fortunate that the hurricane moved east and we didn’t see nearly the impact previously expected,” Patel said. “Our hotels are doing fine. The city is doing fine.”

Now Patel has contacted the city’s Emergency Management Department to offer to house evacuees.

“They’ve informed us they’re working on identifying any needs and any possible evacuee overflow, and logistics of being able to meet those needs, and we have discussed getting hotels involved to shelter the evacuees,” he said. “However, there are a lot of moving parts for them and for the local governments of the impacted areas so we are standing by ready to assist in the event the need arises.”

However, another Houston hotelier, Raj Das, vice president of development for Palace Inn Franchising, said all 10 of his hotels in the city are already completely filled with people displaced by the storm.

“We got a bunch of evacuees from the Port Arthur and Beaumont areas,” Das said. “We’re just making sure to have all the rooms we can available for them because right now it's going to be tough to find rooms.”

So far he is confident that his hotels are safe despite the crowd.

“We have exterior corridors so they're not in the hallways and there are really places where they can congregate inside a building. So most people are just staying in the rooms or they’re just going to the car and leaving. No one's really standing outside or hanging out so it hasn't been an issue so far,” Das said. “With our housekeepers we've been making sure when they do service they're trying to interact with the guests the least that they can. If a guest doesn’t need service, then we're asking them to just make sure to let us know so we’re going in their rooms.”

He's not the only one, Das said.

“All over Houston the inventory is picking up,” Das said. “But we just make sure to let our front desk employees know not to raise the rates too much. We only raised the rate by about 5 percent.”

For some of the people coming in, he said, they lower the rates, sometimes below ADR.

“It breaks your heart when you hear their stories,” he said. “Sometimes you just have to help these people, you know? Just seeing the carnage now from after the storm, I’m thinking that could have been us if it had never shifted, if it had just kept going to the west that would have been us. We really got lucky.”

Other cities in Texas also are seeing waves of evacuees and state officials have turned to hotels to avoid congregating evacuees in large group shelters as would ordinarily have been created pre-COVID.

“Obviously, this year it is different with the considerations for COVID-19; traditionally we have shelters set up in schools, that’s not going to be how we’re going to operate this year,” Bryce Bencivengo, spokesman for the Austin, Texas, department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management told USA Today.

Supposedly the evacuees are being screened and given personal protective equipment and hand sanitizer. They are asked to stay in their rooms and not to congregate in public areas or other people’s rooms.

Nevertheless, a study from Columbia University, which is still undergoing peer review, found a large-scale hurricane evacuation could spur thousands of COVID-19 infections, according to NPR.

"In every scenario we analyzed, hurricane evacuations cause an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases," Kristy Dahl, a senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists and one of the co-authors of the study, was quoted as saying.

More for you

Hilton

Hilton posts unit growth as Q2 RevPAR slips

Summary:

  • Hilton reported 7.5 percent net unit growth in the second quarter while systemwide RevPAR declined 0.5 percent year-over-year.
  • Net income and adjusted EBITDA for the first half of 2025 were $742 million and $1.8 billion, up from $690 million and $1.67 billion YoY.
  • For the third quarter of 2025, Hilton expects systemwide RevPAR to be flat to slightly down.

HILTON WORDLWIDE HOLDINGS reported 7.5 percent net unit growth in the second quarter of 2025, however systemwide RevPAR declined 0.5 percent year-over-year. The company said economic fluctuations are being felt but not hindering performance.

Keep ReadingShow less
Peachtree Group loan
Photo credit: Peachtree Group

Peachtree backs $42M loan for AFC deal

Summary:

  • Peachtree provided a $42 million floating-rate loan to Banyan Street Capital for the acquisition and repositioning of Atlanta Financial Center in Buckhead.
  • The deal delivers capital at a reset basis, with comps pricing 98 percent higher, reflecting strong collateral and execution.
  • It recently launched a $250 million fund to invest in hotel and commercial assets mispriced from market illiquidity.

PEACHTREE GROUP PROVIDED its first mortgage loan to Banyan Street Capital for the acquisition and repositioning of the 914,774-square-foot Atlanta Financial Center in Buckhead, Georgia. Peachtree said the office sector is at an inflection point, similar to the retail segment previously.

Keep ReadingShow less
Trump’s Proposed Visa Fee Threatens Seasonal Hospitality Workforce

Report: Trump visa fee sparks summer staffing fears

Summary:

  • Trump’s proposed $250 Visa Integrity Fee faces pushback from groups relying on seasonal J-1 workers from Latin America and Asia.
  • J-1 visa holders often work as housekeepers, amusement park staff, and lifeguards from pre-season through Labor Day; more than 300,000 use the visa annually.
  • DHS and the State Department have not clarified how the fee will be implemented or who qualifies for a refund.

A $250 VISA Integrity Fee in President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill is drawing criticism from groups that rely on seasonal workers from Latin America and Asia on J-1 and other visas, Newsweek reported. The organizations warn the cost, though sometimes refundable, could reduce the summer workforce that supports U.S. beach towns and resorts.

Keep ReadingShow less
Wyndham & Grubhub Offer Free Delivery to Guests & Staff

Wyndham, Grubhub offer free delivery to guests, staff

Summary:

  • Wyndham Hotels & Resorts is partnering with Grubhub to offer free product delivery to guests and staff at nearly 6,000 U.S. hotels across 20 brands.
  • A Grubhub account is required to activate the complimentary Grubhub+ membership; no credit card is needed and the membership does not auto-renew.
  • Wyndham recently deployed Elavon’s cloud payments interface to more than 6,000 U.S. and Canadian franchisees.

WYNDHAM HOTELS & RESORTS and Grubhub, an online ordering and delivery platform, will offer item delivery to guests and staff with no delivery fees and other benefits. The service is available at nearly 6,000 U.S. hotels across 20 brands, with orders placed through the Grubhub app on-site or by scanning a hotel QR code.

Keep ReadingShow less
U.S. Hotel Construction Hits 20-Quarter Low in June

CoStar: Hotel construction drops in June

Summary:

  • U.S. hotel rooms under construction fell year over year for the sixth straight month in June, hitting a 20-quarter low, CoStar reported.
  • About 138,922 rooms were under construction, down 11.9 percent from June 2024; the luxury segment had 6,443 rooms, up 4.1 percent year over year.
  • Lodging Econometrics recently said Dallas led all U.S. markets in hotel construction pipelines at the end of the first quarter, with 203 projects and 24,496 rooms.

THE NUMBER OF U.S. hotel rooms under construction declined year over year for the sixth straight month in June, reaching a 20-quarter low, according to CoStar. Additionally, more than half of all rooms under development are in the South, mostly outside the top 25 markets.

Keep ReadingShow less